Generally, semiconductor devices include a plurality of circuits which form an integrated circuit fabricated on a semiconductor substrate. A complex network of signal paths will normally be routed to connect the circuit elements distributed on the surface of the substrate. Efficient routing of these signals across the device requires formation of multilevel or multilayered schemes, such as, for example, single or dual damascene wiring structures. The wiring structure typically includes copper, Cu, since Cu based interconnects provide higher speed signal transmission between large numbers of transistors on a complex semiconductor chip as compared with aluminum, Al, -based interconnects.
Within a typical interconnect structure, metal vias run perpendicular to the semiconductor substrate and metal lines run parallel to the semiconductor substrate. Further enhancement of the signal speed and reduction of signals in adjacent metal lines (known as “crosstalk”) are achieved in today's IC product chips by embedding the metal lines and metal vias (e.g., conductive features) in a dielectric material having a dielectric constant of less than silicon dioxide.
In current technologies, physical vapor deposited (PVD) Ta(N) and PVD Cu seed layers are used as a Cu diffusion barrier and plating seed, respectively, for advanced interconnect applications. However, with decreasing critical dimension CD, it is expected that PVD based deposition techniques will run into conformality and step coverage issues. These, in turn, will lead to fill issues at plating such as, for example, center and edge voids, which cause reliability concerns and yield degradation. One way to avoid this potential issue is to reduce the overall thickness of PVD deposited material, and utilizes a single layer of liner material as both the diffusion barrier and the plating seed layer.
Another way to avoid this potential issue is the use of chemical vapor deposition (CVD) or atomic layer deposition (ALD) technologies which results in better step coverage and conformality than the one from a PVD deposition process. CVD/ALD deposited Ru and Ir have the potential of replacing current PVD based barrier/plating seed layers for advanced interconnect applications.
However, an issue that exists for the direct plating of Cu on Ru (or another like noble metal, i.e., a metal from Group VIIIA of the Periodic Table of Elements) is the tendency of the surface to oxidize on exposure to air which results in an increased electrical conductivity, possibly a decrease in the uniformity of the electrical conductivity across a wafer, and possibly adhesion. The noble metal surface oxidation leads to problems in subsequent Cu electroplating process. Apart from the extremely poor fill of patterned structures, insufficient adhesion of Cu to a surface oxide poses electromigration and stress reliability concerns. Known solutions involve the use of processes such as forming gas annealing to reduce the surface oxide before plating. Drawbacks of these prior art techniques include, for example: 1) a time window (Q time) exists within which reduced wafers have to be plated before the surface oxide grows again, and 2) increased manufacturing cost due to require tooling for the reducing process, and increased raw process time.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,486,262 to Datta et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,432,821. to Dubin et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 6,881,318 to Hey et al. are some prior art examples describing the direct plating of Cu onto a noble metal. Although such examples of direct plating exist, these prior art direct plating processes also suffer the above mentioned surface oxidation problem.
In view of the surface oxidation problem mentioned above for prior art direct plating methods, there is a continued need to provide a direct plating method that can be used for fabricating interconnect structures where the surface oxidation of the noble metal seed layer has been substantially reduced and/or eliminated.